Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/244

234 Wasn’t this a totally different arrangement from what had been announced before?

“If you gentlemen will examine the table of statistics and the balance sheet, you will understand that the company is in a very difficult predicament. The nation’s currency, which at the time of the great earthquake was greatly inflated, is now being deflated, and this has an enormous influence on this company. If you compare the balance sheet for the second half of 1923 with that of the first half of this present year, 1926, this will become obvious to you”

The director recited eloquently the two rows of figures, but from the ranks of the workers came a voice, “Don’t talk rot!” and they poked one another and grinned. … Wasn’t the boss’s missus, and his son—a mere school-kid—and even his new-born baby, all large shareholders? You could juggle figures anyhow to make things look all right.

But, at any rate, in the second half of 1923 the figure of net profit was 179,000 odd yen; taking the amount carried forward, they then paid a dividend of 10 per cent.; whereas in the first half of 1926, including what was brought forward from the last half year, they barely managed to pay 3 per cent., and that, according to the director, was only by breaking into their capital.

“And because of that, you reckon you’re going to dig up the old piecework system and pit us workers against one another like a lot of fighting cocks, do you?” a voice cried, and Kimi-chan, who was sitting near the front with five or six other